Terrorists

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wisely has backed off her statement that "the system worked" because a Nigerian terrorist failed to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day. The system decidedly didn't work if an explosive could be brought aboard a plane by a man whose radicalization had been brought to the attention of the United States by his father, a prominent banker. But as Congress and the Obama administration undertake inquests into this near disaster, their primary focus should be on lapses in human intelligence, not technology.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy is a scofflaw with screwy ideas about the Constitution, and the armed oddballs who have joined his skirmish with the Bureau of Land Management are a nutty vanguard of the deluded conspiracy-mongers who dominate the far right wing in American politics. Given their actions, they do not deserve to be called patriots, but neither are they terrorists. They have been characterized as both. Appearing together on a TV news show, Nevada's two U.S. senators disagreed about the nature of the armed men who scared off federal agents as they attempted to confiscate Bundy's cattle.

Re "Have the terrorists won?," Opinion, Aug. 7 We elected Barack Obama as president to be the antidote to George W. Bush. And yet, under this administration: - Gitmo remains open, despite the president's campaign promise to close it. - The government has the "limited" power to target citizens for drone strikes. - Air travel has reached the tax-audit, root-canal level of dreadfulness. - The National Security Agency tracks our telephone calls and emails. - The U.S. Postal Service photographs and logs our mail.

April 13, 2014 | By Sergei L. Loiko, This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

MOSCOW -- Ukrainian forces launched an "anti-terrorist operation" in the city of Slavyansk on Sunday morning after pro-Russian separatists seized buildings in the eastern area of the country, acting Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his Facebook account. "Units from all law enforcement agencies of the country are being used [in the operation]," Avakov wrote. "God is with us!" Armed men in masks and unmarked camouflage uniforms stormed and seized administrative buildings and police stations in Slavyansk and at least two other towns in the coal-mining region of Donetsk on Saturday.

The Obama administration's mea culpa over the failure to prevent the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day is understandable but misses the point. Yes, the United States can do better at catching would-be attackers; that will always be the case. But the truth is that there is no absolute security -- short of conceding victory to the terrorists by making it impossible for foreigners to visit the U.S., hellish for Americans to fly and difficult for all to live normal lives.

Will's column makes me wonder what he's trying to say. Does he mean that Americans, by traveling to areas where terrorists are operating, will combat this craziness by their numbers? Or that our overseas friends who miss our smiling faces and our pocketbooks will be made friendlier, knowing that Americans are available for terrorists to intimidate? Does that mean, if there are no Americans do the terrorists stop operations? I hope Will understands that the terrorists operate as they do, and where they do, because of convenience, i.e. Europe is easily reached from their various headquarters.

Vice President Joe Biden has been the White House's point person for reaching a debt-ceiling deal since day one, so it was only natural that he was dispatched to Capitol Hill on Monday to move the ball over the finish line. "I didn't go to convince, I went to explain," Biden told reporters after back-to-back meetings with Senate and House Democrats today. Forget the debt deal. Biden is now being asked by Republicans to explain comments attributed to him likening talks with conservative "tea party" lawmakers to negotiations with terrorists.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy is a scofflaw with screwy ideas about the Constitution, and the armed oddballs who have joined his skirmish with the Bureau of Land Management are a nutty vanguard of the deluded conspiracy-mongers who dominate the far right wing in American politics. Given their actions, they do not deserve to be called patriots, but neither are they terrorists. They have been characterized as both. Appearing together on a TV news show, Nevada's two U.S. senators disagreed about the nature of the armed men who scared off federal agents as they attempted to confiscate Bundy's cattle.

Months after an airport screener was killed in a shooting rampage at Los Angeles International Airport, a new report concludes that adding more security measures at the nation's airports may not be worth the cost. The study goes on to suggest that it might even make sense to relax some of the existing security tactics. "It may be time to reduce security," said John Mueller, a professor of political science at Ohio State University who wrote the report with Mark G. Stewart, a civil engineering professor at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

FBI officials are hoping that a $250,000 reward may lead to the capture of a suspected domestic terrorist -- wanted for three bombings in Northern California -- who they believe may be hiding in Hawaii. Authorities are combing Hawaii's Big Island and focusing on the Puna and Pahoa communities south of Hilo on the island's eastern edge, where animal rights activist Daniel Andreas San Diego may be hiding, FBI officials said. A federal arrest warrant was issued for San Diego, 36, in October 2003.

A suspected domestic terrorist wanted for three bombings in Northern California may be hiding in Hawaii, the FBI announced Wednesday. Authorities are combing Hawaii's Big Island and focusing on the Puna and Pahoa communities south of Hilo on the island's eastern edge, where animal rights activist Daniel Andreas San Diego may be hiding, FBI officials said. San Diego, 36, is accused of detonating two bombs on the campus of a biotechnology corporation in August 2003 and of setting off a bomb with nails strapped to it at a nutritional products company in Pleasanton a month later.

MADRID - Reminders of her son hang close to Pilar Manjon's heart. There's the necklace she wears with his name, Daniel, and the golden pendant bearing his first initial. A locket holds a tiny snapshot of his handsome face, smiling with the promise of a life that was abruptly cut short, along with scores of others, a decade ago in the deadliest Islamic terrorist attack on European soil. Daniel, 20, was heading into downtown Madrid the morning of March 11, 2004, when a series of bombs exploded within minutes aboard four packed commuter trains.

KIEV, Ukraine - He bent over the limp body and raised a corner of the bloody white sheet that covered it. Volodymyr Holodnyuk let out a dull moan and let the fabric drop. He then picked up a blue helmet that lay at the feet of the body, its insides gummy with blood, and ran his trembling fingers along the surface until he found what he was looking for: a hole left by a 7.62-millimeter bullet, the sort used by a Dragunov sniper rifle. The helmet, and the body, belonged to Holodnyuk's son, Ustym, a 19-year-old engineering student who was among at least 67 protesters killed in central Kiev early Thursday, at least 20 of them brought down by snipers.

HOMS, Syria - The international community is lauding a United Nations-brokered deal to provide relief to Homs' long-blockaded Old City, but the aid plan is far from universally welcome in this battle-scarred and profoundly divided city. The relief effort has stirred deep animosities among many government supporters, who view it as a sellout to opposition forces - "terrorists," in official terms - hunkered down in the ruins of the Old City. "This is basically giving the terrorists food and medicine and letting them go free," said Rihab Ismael, a dairy worker who lives in the Zahra district, a sniper-plagued zone less than a mile from what remains of the rebel-controlled Old City.

BEIRUT - The general command of Al Qaeda has disavowed one of its best-known and most successful affiliates, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which is waging a brutal guerrilla war in both Middle Eastern nations. Apparently angered by the group's growing power and autonomy, Al Qaeda's Pakistani-based central command issued a blunt statement saying that the Islamic State is "not a branch of Al Qaeda," has no "organizational relationship" with Al Qaeda and its actions cannot be linked to Al Qaeda.